Where do the ideas come from?
I drove to Louisiana.
I didn’t have a concrete reason to go—although, to my mind, Louisiana itself is reason enough. The Pelican State is just that kind of place. Wild, untamed, and deeply mysterious. Diverse and tumultuous, and featuring some of the best food I’ve ever eaten…even if I couldn’t quite tell what it was that I ate.
I’ve loved Louisiana since my first visit—all of it. Baton Rouge, Cajun Country, unchecked swamplands, sugar cane fields, and, of course, the crown jewel Big Easy—New Orleans.
If you haven’t been, I won’t try to explain the seductive magic or unassuming charm of Louisiana. I’m not that good a writer. If you have been, maybe you share my enchantment—maybe you disagree entirely. That’s all okay, because Louisiana accepts all kinds and isn’t much interested in proving her point to anybody. It’s more a “take it or leave it” kind of place, with very little in the way of expectation, and nothing whatsoever in the way of pretense.
She’s welcoming, but not always warm. Friendly, but not always trustworthy. Promising, but watch your back. Louisiana is a place for the bold and the wary, the strong and the weary. It’s a place that lets you unwind and gives room for your mind to wander.
Maybe that’s why I tossed a duffel bag into the back of my Silverado and headed west. Because, truth be told, my mind was exhausted.
I desperately needed time to wander.
Day 1: Swamps Calling
I used to call them “research trips”.
Technically, these random trips of mine, wandering aimlessly from town to town while uncovering stories by the truckload, are research trips. They fuel my writing like nothing else. People ask where my ideas come from, and the truth is: everywhere. But my favorite place to find new ideas is on the road.
Whether I’m in my truck, riding my motorcycle, or wandering around on foot—hitting the streets is where I find stories. Just keep your eyes and ears open…and try to keep up.
Yes, my habit of disappearing for days on end, drifting from small towns to big cities, not always looking for anything in particular is one of my favorite things in life. It serves my creative process like rocket fuel. It’s justifiably labeled a research endeavor.
But for all that, I’ve recently taken to calling these rambling walkabouts something else: a reset trip. Because the truth is…I get tired. Not so much physically. A good night’s rest will reset my body as necessary. I’m talking about mental weariness, the kind produced by hundreds of hours at the keyboard crafting six to nine novels per year. It’s break-neck pace, and I’ve been doing it pretty much nonstop since 2019. I love the speed. It’s my dream job.
Lately though…I’ve been short on gas. I’m not burnt out, understand, and even if I was I wouldn’t accept it. I’m just tired. I can sleep eight or ten hours, and my mind is still wrung out. I need a recharge, I need a break…
I need some sweet Louisiana.
With my darling wife’s support—bless her—I headed west on a Thursday with no definite destination. I hadn’t even booked a hotel. I knew I wanted to be in Louisiana, and I knew I wanted a shrimp po boy—I always want a shrimp po boy. Beyond that, I had no plans. I set the cruise at ten under the speed limit, because life is too short and too mean to be in a hurry, and relaxed to the audiobook edition of Taking Berlin by Martin Dugard.
Nonfiction is one of my guilty pleasures. I say guilty, because as a novelist, you’d expect that I would read a lot of fiction. I read some fiction, but my favorite thing is nonfiction—history, biography, self-development, topical, argumentative. Really whatever.
I’m the furthest thing from a scholar. I satisfied Alabama’s basic education requirements with a GED, and subsequently floundered my way through college. But I learned a long time ago that an abundance of great reading can generate the illusion of intelligence, which is often just as useful as the real thing. So I gobble up subject matter at random, obsessing over certain historical characters or studies until something new catches my interest.
Audiobooks. Print. Ebooks. Whatever. Truth is so often stranger than fiction.
One of my recent obsessions is a historical figure by the name of Huey Long—a demagogue, hero, tyrant, and savior of Great Depression Louisiana…all depending on your point of view. Kingfish by Richard D. White, Jr. added gasoline to the fires of curiosity that had burned since I first discovered Huey way back in 2019 while working on the Reed Montgomery series. I was enthralled by a character of equal parts charisma and wrath, compelling charm and savage creativity. Huey served as Louisiana’s governor, then her senator until his death in 1935 when he was slain by an assassin’s bullet. He lies encased in concrete beneath a thirty-foot statue of himself facing the looming state capitol which he built.
Talk about a story.
I rambled into Baton Rouge where a long walk was followed by a filet mignon at the local Outback steakhouse. Then I went to visit Huey. I stood in the dark beneath his statue and thought about his legend. His myth. His legacy. I sat on the steps of the capitol he built and breathed in the damp Louisiana air.
Then I did pushups on those steps, because I’ve recently embarked on a 35-day, 3,500 pushup challenge, and even though Huey was a bit of a slob, I thought he’d approve of the bold gesture.
Back at my hotel in Port Allen, I lay awake in the dark, every bit as tired as I’d been all day, and wondered…
Am I burning out? Am I finally losing the magic?
Day 2: Not Good Enough for Huey P. Long
I woke early after a bad night’s sleep and skipped the hotel breakfast in favor of a long walk along the Mississippi Levee Trail, beginning in downtown Baton Rouge and heading south to the LSU campus.
I walk almost every day—four or five miles, usually with music, audiobooks, and Bible readings. This day, however, I felt a sudden and unusual need for silence. To just let my mind wander and not have to focus on anything.
I left the headphones in the truck. I walked, allowing my thoughts to drift, until Death Valley loomed over the horizon in all its purple and yellow glory. I thought of the great Joe Burrow, one of my favorite football players, and how he bragged that SEC stadiums were louder than any stadium in the NFL.
Yeah, I’m proud of that statement. I’m proud of the SEC. I hope Alabama stomps LSU this year…but if they don’t, I hope LSU goes all the way and wins a title. Because if it can’t be the Tide, it should absolutely be a team as raw and passionate as the Tigers.
Check out of my hotel, I finally found breakfast at Louise’s Café, where a biscuit the size of my face was as fresh, hot, and delicious as any I’ve ever eaten. Then I journeyed to the Louisiana State Capitol—no, not the new one. The old one. The one that wasn’t good enough for Huey P. Long.
Beneath a stained-glass dome I admired the gothic architecture of a building that once led a rebellion, and later, a rebirth. I drifted from one display to the next, not in a hurry, but still restless. Still longing for a burst of inspiration that would drive back the mental fatigue brought on by week after week of hard-charging effort at the keyboard.
Just relax. Be here. Breathe.
Words of wisdom, perhaps, but easier said than done. I returned to the front desk where June, a friendly former civil-servant of the state of Louisiana, greeted museum visitors.
“Huey Long,” I said. “Hero or villain?”
The question kicked off a twenty-minute conversation that drifted from history to present-day politics, Louisiana’s peculiar needs and her even more peculiar challenges. It didn’t take an educated man to know that June loved her state and loved its story. She loved its people even more—which, in my mind, is the mark of a good human. I shook her hand and thanked her for her work…then I was back in my truck and headed west, because that monster biscuit had somehow burned off. It was time for lunch. Time for that shrimp po boy.
Le Café in Breaux Bridge delivered the best I’ve ever eaten—and brother, I’ve eaten quite a few. A cruise through St. Martinsville and along the Bayou Teche brought me through the heart of Cajun Country. This is deep Louisiana, a place where Wikipedia will tell you that the people speak English…but it doesn’t sound like any English I ever heard. I sat by the bayou and thought of James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux, a staple of the mystery genre and the kind of guy I’d love to have lunch with. It was ninety-something degrees and I’d been hot and sweaty all day—at some point, you just stop noticing.
On south. Through endless sugar cane fields and countryside sliced by a thousand splinters of flowing water. I was still driving slow, still not in a hurry. Sometimes listening to Taking Berlin, sometimes listening to Zach Bryan’s top hits. “God Speed” is one of my very favorites. It made me think—it made me wonder.
Am I just moving too fast?
The last few years have been a hurricane. Relentless, fast, thrilling…but also draining. From Nashville to south and then Coastal Alabama. Thirty-four titles published since summer of 2019 and quite a few more written. Life challenges—I’ll spare you the details, but you understand. We all have personal drama, some of it undeserved, some of it well deserved. Mine is a pretty even mix of the two, with a good portion brought on by my own foolishness, and plenty more brought on by the same tiresome pigheadedness of the miserable and the vicious.
I try not to judge—life is hard, and we’re all just doing the best we can. Only one Man ever got it right. Following Him means learning to forgive.
But I’m not pretending that it’s easy. I’m not pretending that I don’t feel Zach Bryan’s words when he says: “There’s got to be more to this than being pissed off all the time”.
The man’s a poet in the truest sense of the term, and his musings provoke self-reflection. They hold my feet to the fire, sometimes. In my unguarded moments, honest thoughts bubble to the surface. I begin to wonder…
If I wasn’t a little pissed off at an unjust world, could I even write?
So many questions—just as many miles. Maybe it’s not about the answers. I rolled into Houma (pronounced Home-Uh) in late afternoon and checked into another hotel. I ate shrimp étouffée and potato salad at C’est Bon Café, where the waitress assured me that the two were a good match.
She was right.
With a full belly I still had some daylight to kill. I wasn’t ready to head back to the hotel. I had a travel humidor full of good cigars. I was curious about a quiet, waterside spot to light one up and maybe, finally, find an answer to those tormenting questions. A little fuel to reignite my creative fire.
I found the spot I was looking for in downtown Houma at the intersection of Bayou Terrebonne and the Intercostal Waterway. With bridges arching overhead but very little in the way of traffic, it was a surprisingly quiet spot. Tugboats pushed barges past every ten minutes or so—flat barges, bulk barges, crane barges. A fast boat yanking three kids on an inner tube cut around one of them. Three good ol’ boys in a pontoon boat rushed by and waved.
I lit up a My Fathers The Judge, one of my new favorite cigars, and settled in with my back to a row of houses that had seen better days. Honestly, all of Houma has seen better days…although when those days might have been, I couldn’t tell you. This place is tired. Battered by so many years of hurricanes and hard work, failing economies and business founded, businesses closed. Shrimping and shipping, oil jobs and import work.
Mostly, hard work. The kind that grinds people down over decades, smearing blue collars with grease and sweat and, yes, a little blood. You just can’t sit in a place like this without feeling it. That story of hardship, of perseverance, of a willingness to lose everything on Friday and be right back to work on Monday…because nothing, not bad government or a failing dollar, or the wrath of a Cat 5 superstorm was going to wipe them from this shore. They were born here. They will die here. This land, as dirty and hard as it may be, is theirs.
I was reminded of something June told me, back at the capitol that Huey Long abandoned. She recalled her years working on the road for the state—she didn’t specify the job but hinted that it was some kind of support work. She said: “People work their entire lives to afford a fish camp down on the coast. The people already living there are high school dropouts, but they’re the hardest people to help. They’re living the life people work their entire lives to be able to enjoy. They don’t want help—they’re good.”
Sitting on a concrete wall with my flip flops dangling over the murky ICW, I felt those words. As strong and as visceral as June voiced them. I looked around…and I didn’t understand, but I started to. I saw a town full of real people. Not the fakes you see on TV, or the polished smiles leering from the billboards of New Orleans, so eager to sell you something that they’ll adopt any persona.
No. The people of Houma…they’re what I’d call real Americans. I don’t pretend to be as tough as any of the grizzled tugboat captains who chugged past, but I couldn’t deny feeling at home in their company. Comforted by it. Relaxed.
Maybe even…refreshed?
I smoked the cigar. I listened to music and spoke on the phone with Annie. I saturated myself in the heat and humidity and the fading sun. I didn’t move and didn’t want to move.
For the first time in a long time, I felt the urge to do something that I’m not particularly good at. Something that I’ll rarely admit to doing. I drew my phone and opened a fresh note sheet…and I wrote a poem.
Just a few bars, nothing remarkable. Nothing that would make me a dollar or that anyone should care to read. But I had to express what I was feeling, somehow. Not the solution, but a clarification of the question.
An acceptance that it’s okay to just not know the answer.
I returned to the hotel feeling better than I had in days. I slept better, too. I got up and ate a terrible complimentary breakfast, then fired up the truck for the final stretch.
It was time to confront the Big Easy.
Day 3: New Orleans Sweat
I’d considered visiting the National World War II Museum—hands down one of the best museums I’ve seen anywhere. It had been a few years since my last stop, and I finally had the time to move slow and read every placard. It was tempting…
But no. I still wasn’t ready to flip that switch. I didn’t want to engage. I just wanted to wander.
So I parked the Silverado and walked. Across Poydras Street, just north of Central City. Around the Superdome, over Canal, into the Quarter and up Bourbon. I was pouring sweat, but so was everybody else. Some kid was wailing on upturned buckets, screaming into the void. The nightclubs were thumping—right in the middle of the day. People swarmed. Everything was hazy and hot and unhinged.
I wasn’t looking for a wild time, and if you linger too long in the path of Bourbon Street, trouble will find you. So I veered off and hit Decatur instead, where the folks at The Cigar Factory roll stogies by hand, right there in the heart of the Crescent City.
I bought two sticks and stepped back out. Looked up at the steamy sky. The weathered buildings. The stained sidewalks. The swirl of half-drunk and more-than-half-oblivious humanity.
There’s an energy to New Orleans that I’ve never tasted anywhere else. Grittier than Vegas. Slower than Nashville, but not an ounce less wasted. Beaten, battered, held together with duct tape and prayer. And still—don’t ever call New Orleans broken.
This is just who she is. Twenty-four seven, three sixty-five. If New York is the city that never sleeps, New Orleans is the city that never quits. You can’t kill this place.
You can’t change it, either. You accept it—or you don’t. Doesn’t matter. New Orleans doesn’t care. And in that defiance, that careless confidence—however reckless—I see something I admire. A kind of resilience. Maybe even a secret, whispering in the back of my mind…
What if I’m not burnt out? What if I’m just a little less NYC and a little more Big Easy?
Now that’s a thought. One that finally put a smile on my face.
I returned to my truck and cruised through the Lower Ninth Ward on my way back to the highway. Not because it’s a tourist destination—it’s not. I went because this was still a research trip, and I had one last piece of business in New Orleans.
I needed a street. Not just any street. A specific kind.
Even twenty years on, the Lower Nine is a patchwork of battered homes and vacant lots—Katrina’s ghost still hanging in the air. Some folks have returned. Some new houses have gone up. But the gaps remain. It’s a poor, hard place, but no less unbreakable than Houma.
Real Americans.
It was one real American in particular who’d brought me across the canal, searching for his house. I didn’t have an address—just a vision. Tight-packed homes. Overgrown yards. Cars on blocks. Shirtless neighbors lending a hand in exchange for a cold beer. Dogs on porches. Kids kicking balls in the street. A lazy “hello” and wild cheering every Sunday when the Black and Gold hits the end zone.
A homey place. Wounded, yes. Smashed in the mouth—but still standing. Because places like this don’t quit, they bounce back. A day late and a dollar short… but tomorrow’s another chance.
And then, there it was. A street called Deslonde. It had the history and heritage I’d come to find. Not something to steal or appropriate—something to honor. To understand. To depict with enough heart and truth that the locals might just nod and say, “Yeah… he got it right.”
I didn’t pick a house number. Didn’t need to. I rolled down once and rolled out again. Smiled.
Because I knew—I’d found it.
The whisper that had been circling in my head for months finally took shape. It came together around a single line:
The title is Bond Recovery Agent, but Frank Thibodeaux prefers ‘Bounty Hunter’.
Oh yeah! The magic was back. Storming in.
I flicked the turn signal. Merged onto the highway. Turned east for Mobile.
Thank you, Louisiana. You slick-sliding, trick-turning, sleepy-eyed little devil…
And a great friend.
I watch the tugs go by.
The water is slow and running high.
The sun fades from a ruthless sky…
And I watch the tugs go by.
Many a life swallowed by swollen waters;
Hard working men feeding fatherless daughters.
Clapboard homes beaten and shamed…
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
A hundred years past and a hundred more to come.
The hurricanes smash, but the locals never run.
They carve out a life, because what else can they do?
Churning through time like their slow bayou.
And I watch the tugs go by.
I don’t pretend to understand, but I try.
It’s life by a thread and nobody asks why;
All you can do is watch the tugs go by.
I came here to listen, maybe to learn;
To watch the hard edge of soft waters churn.
To work through a mystery of struggle and pain…
Because the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Lifetimes pass, my life will have its turn;
The tidal waves will crash, but only the cowards will run.
You carve out a life, because it’s all you can do.
You find a little peace in that slow bayou.
So take off a load and watch the tugs go by.
If you don’t understand, that’s all right.
Better to live life hard than live it a lie.
You could do a lot worse than watching the tugs go by.
Houma, Lousiana.
August 2nd, 2025